Best Lifehttp://www.adweek.com/taxonomy/term/9283/all
enMen's Fitness Magazine Is Remade as a Lifestyle Brandhttp://www.adweek.com/news/press/mens-fitness-magazine-remade-lifestyle-brand-148947
Lucia Moses<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/tt-mens-fitness-hed-2013.jpg"> <p>
Two years ago, <a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://cdn02.cdn.justjared.com/wp-content/uploads/headlines/2011/05/vin-diesel-mens-fitness.jpg&amp;imgrefurl=http://www.justjared.com/2011/05/04/vin-diesel-covers-mens-fitness-june-2011/&amp;h=373&amp;w=275&amp;sz=45&amp;tbnid=e5N5akJs9ii3vM:&amp;tbnh=90&amp;tbnw=66&amp;zoom=1&amp;usg=__7Vn9YuQikKRimBh7DXxUHct7pYo=&amp;docid=wR-n15EHTfe7OM&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=D7l6UeOpFo384APq2YCQCg&amp;ved=0CDMQ9QEwAA&amp;dur=405" target="_blank">Men&rsquo;s Fitness put Vin Diesel</a> on its cover, wearing a red, body-hugging T-shirt and surrounded by coverlines that screamed &ldquo;Instant muscle&rdquo; and &ldquo;53 fat-burning tips.&rdquo; Vin is back for the June issue, and while he&rsquo;s still showing off his biceps, this time he&rsquo;s sporting John Varvatos and Banana Republic.</p>
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Sitting at a long conference table in the offices of American Media Inc., chairman <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._Pecker" target="_blank">David Pecker</a> placed the 2011 issue alongside the new one to underscore the point: Men&rsquo;s Fitness, long the province of workout tips and Gatorade ads, is going in an upscale lifestyle direction to compete with the likes of Men&rsquo;s Health, Details and GQ.</p>
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It is a triumphant moment for Pecker, who&rsquo;s tried for years to get Men&rsquo;s Fitness out of the enthusiast ad ghetto (&ldquo;We could not even land the cars they drive to the gym&rdquo;). But it wasn&rsquo;t until he enlisted what he called his &ldquo;Delta Force&rdquo; of Dave Zinczenko and fellow Rodale refugees Stephen Perrine, Joe Heroun and John Mather that he felt he could. &ldquo;This to me is the biggest thing I did since George magazine,&rdquo; he effused. &ldquo;But John was not an editor. Dave is an editor.&rdquo;</p>
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Comparisons will no doubt be made between Men&rsquo;s Fitness and rival Men&rsquo;s Health, which Zinczenko edited and spun into a mini media empire including Women&rsquo;s Health, Best Life and books until he was pushed out of Rodale last November. Not long after, he was having drinks with Pecker at the Bull &amp; Bear at the Waldorf-Astoria. (It was the second time Pecker had come courting, the first being shortly after he bought Men&rsquo;s Fitness from Joe Weider in 2002).</p>
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Fast-forward to the new <a href="http://www.mensfitness.com/" target="_blank">Men&rsquo;s Fitness</a>, all spiffed-up with a new logo in all caps, black-and-white cover and more attitude. The tagline, which used to be &ldquo;Everything for every man,&rdquo; is now &ldquo;The new measure of success.&rdquo; To fulfill that promise, new departments instruct men in how to stay fit, but also what to eat and what to drive. Hugh Jackman will be on the August cover. Timothy Ferriss and Jack Otter will be contributing, as will fashion photographers Ben Watts and Richard Fibbs.</p>
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Guys who go to the gym also are interested in other markers of success, Perrine explained. It&rsquo;s &ldquo;filling an absolute need&rdquo; in the market, Zinczenko chimed in. &ldquo;Fitness is the vehicle for living the great life&mdash;getting the partner they want, getting the promotion they want.&rdquo;</p>
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As for that &ldquo;other magazine we were associated with in the past,&rdquo; as the team is likely to refer to Men&rsquo;s Health, Zinczenko and Co. dismissed the possibility of confusion (Rodale sued AMI in 2004, charging that Men&rsquo;s Fitness looked too much like Men&rsquo;s Health.) Zinczenko avoided criticizing his former employer, where CEO Maria Rodale made no secret of the fact that she felt Zinczenko had become too big of a star himself.</p>
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&ldquo;I think we&rsquo;re on to something completely different&hellip;more upscale, cooler,&rdquo; Zinczenko insisted. &ldquo;We were really competing against ourselves; we weren&rsquo;t even thinking of Men&rsquo;s Health, or Details, or Esquire.&rdquo; Perrine was more blunt: &ldquo;We want to get away far away from Men&rsquo;s Health as possible.&rdquo;</p>
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Not that they wouldn&rsquo;t like to get a few of its readers; Men&rsquo;s Health&rsquo;s circulation, at 1.9 million, is three times that of Men&rsquo;s Fitness. Men&rsquo;s Health also carried more ad pages in 2012, 720 to Men&rsquo;s Fitness&rsquo; 627. (Men&rsquo;s Fitness readers are younger, by two years, however.)</p>
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Marketers seem to be taking note; with the June issue, Men&rsquo;s Fitness is starting to get the kinds of high-end advertising it&rsquo;s never carried before, like Ralph Lauren&rsquo;s Polo fragrance and Ocean Pacific. &ldquo;They are finally getting the marketplace attention they never had, as warranted under the new regime,&rdquo; said MediaVest evp Robin Steinberg. &ldquo;Men&rsquo;s Health now has competition.&rdquo;</p>
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AMI is spending uncharacteristically big on the magazine, with the new talent, with 25 percent more editorial pages and a big party at The Standard to kick off the new issue. Lizzie Grubman&rsquo;s PR firm is working on the launch.</p>
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&ldquo;We really believe we will make an enormous splash in this market,&rdquo; Pecker said. But for him to get the magazine to the 1 million circulation threshold he aspires to in a category that&rsquo;s flat will require a lot of fancy footwork, one single-copy buyer at a time.</p>
The PressBanana RepublicBest LifeDavid PeckerEsquireGQLucia MosesJohn MatherJohn VarbatosMagazine ContentMen's HealthMen’s FitnessOnlineRodaleStephen PerrineTabletWomen's HealthMagazineMon, 29 Apr 2013 03:50:04 +0000148947 at http://www.adweek.comMen's Magazine Smackdown!http://www.adweek.com/news/press/mens-magazine-smackdown-144853
Emma Bazilian<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/tt-smackit-hed-2012.jpg"> <!--[CDATA[<p-->
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September was a banner advertising month for women&rsquo;s fashion glossies, but men&rsquo;s magazines also had a big uptick, in male apparel and grooming. Publishers are taking advantage by dusting off a couple of shuttered guy-oriented titles. <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/press/fairchild-fashion-media-revives-mens-fashion-title-m-140739">Fairchild recently relaunched men&rsquo;s fashion title <em>M</em></a>, and last week, <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/rodales-best-life-making-comeback-140756">Rodale reintroduced <em>Best Life</em></a>. Can&rsquo;t decide which one to pick up at the newsstand? Here&rsquo;s a preview.&nbsp;<br />
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<img alt="" src="/files/tt-smackit-01b-2012.jpg" /></p>
The PressBest LifeFairchildM magazineMagazine ContentOnlineEmma BazilianMagazineTue, 30 Oct 2012 08:54:01 +0000144853 at http://www.adweek.comRodale's 'Best Life' Making Comebackhttp://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/rodales-best-life-making-comeback-140756
Lucia Moses<p>
It&rsquo;s the season for reviving defunct brands. Health and fitness publisher Rodale is bringing back <em>Best Life</em>, the high-end men&rsquo;s lifestyle magazine that it <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/press/rodale-shutter-best-life-111610">folded in 2009</a>, <em>Adweek</em> has learned.</p>
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With well-rounded editorial and big-name contributors like David Mamet and Jay McInerney, <em>Best Life</em> was popular with readers and advertisers, carrying brands like brands like Lexus, Charles Schwab and Yves Saint Laurent. However, it became a victim of its newness (it had only launched five years before) and the luxury ad market, which took a dive in the recession.</p>
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Rodale kept the name alive in the form of a front-of-book section in <em>Men&rsquo;s Health</em> called The Best Life, though, and people who were key to the original magazine are still around, including the editor, Stephen Perrine; and&nbsp;David Zinczenko, gm for Rodale&#39;s Healthy Living Group evp and book division. Zinczenko will oversee the revival as editorial director. Perrine will resume his role as editor (while keeping his role as <a href="www.adweek.com/news/press/more-rodale-execs-leave-135315">publisher of Rodale Books</a>), and John Mather will be creative director.&nbsp;</p>
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Rodale is the latest in a string of publishers taking advantage of the resurgence in luxury advertising by launching new or bringing back defunct brands that folded due to a lack of ad support but which had a strong reader following. In the latter category,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/press/cond-nast-revive-domino-special-newsstand-editions-138107">Cond&eacute; Nast revived <em>Domino</em></a>&nbsp;as a newsstand publication and <em>Gourme</em>t as an app and special-edition magazines. They join a rash of new titles aimed at the high end, including <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/bloomberg-double-frequency-pursuits-140065">Bloomberg&#39;s <em>Pursuits</em></a>, Fairchild Fashion Media&#39;s menswear quarterly <em>M </em>and Jason Binn&#39;s<em> Du Jour.</em></p>
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&quot;We&#39;re excited to be back in the rapidly expanding luxury market with a magazine that men really care about,&quot; Zinczenko said.</p>
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Rodale is being cautious this time around; <em>Best Life</em> will come out as a 300,000-circulation SIP (special-interest publication) priced at $5.99 for three months starting Oct. 23. There will be a companion iPad app and potential e-commerce component attached to it. Like the original, it will cover a range of topics like style, wealth, travel and fatherhood.</p>
Advertising & BrandingThe PressBest LifeMen's HealthRodaleMagazineThu, 24 May 2012 19:33:30 +0000140756 at http://www.adweek.com